Hogwarts of 0's and 1's - Let Time Unravel
by SheWhoWritesFanfiction
Summary: It's the sequel to Hogwarts of 0's and 1's! See our semi-developed characters two books in the future! More serious tone! Conflict! Ice cream!
1. Chapter 1

**AN**: Dun, da da duuuuuun! Sequel time! I recommend you read the original 'Hogwarts of 0's and 1's' before you read this, you can find it on my profile. Just so we know, I intend to set this during the 3rd book. Now that we have characters established, and I get to skip a couple books into the future, I can do some more delicious character development. Please comment/review!

Chapter 1

"Rin, this thing doesn't look safe."

"Len, you say that every year, coming _and_ going. Now get on the train."

"But-" Len was cut short by Rin, who roughly shoved him onto the Hogwarts Express, then entered herself; followed by Miku, Kaito, and Kim.

"Has anybody seen Cam yet?" Miku looked around, and Kim bit her lip, which Miku noticed. "Kim, you need to make up with him some time."

"Don't wanna." Rin decided that her input would be valuable at this point, but she was mistaken.

"Maybe if you told us what you fought about, we could help-"

"No!" The conversation would've turned into an argument here, but they were saved by Mary yelling to the small group from the open door of a cabin –

"Hey! Kim, Ka'to, we're up here!" Kaito lead them to the cabin, with Kim lagging behind. "Ah thought you'd nev'a get here." Sitting next to Mary (a 'southern belle' Ravenclaw with multicoloured hair, dyed to perfection) was John – a freckly Ravenclaw with a two megabyte brain, as Kim would've put it. "Ah haven't seen George yet, ah think he's with Harry an' tha' crowd." Shoving their luggage under their seats and into overhead bins, everyone sat and prepared for the ride. "By th' way, Miku, ah love your hair."

"Thanks!" Miku smiled and patted her two pigtails, recently cut short. "Do you know where they are? I'd like to say hi to George."

"I think I saw them in that carriage, over there." John leaned over and pointed to a door a little way down the train.

"Right." Miku stood and left the cabin, but waited outside to listen to what was going on within it. Kaito began to make small talk, and Len started nagging Rin about her messy hair – which was met with a loud rebuke from Rin, followed by a pause where Kim was expected to intervene, but didn't. Miku sighed, spun 'round to the direction of George's cabin, and instantly bumped into someone. "S-sorry…" She looked up, and smiled – it was only Cam. "Oh, Cam. I didn't know you were already here."

"Well – uh – yeah." He smiled and blushed a little. The pudgy blonde boy hesitated for a second, before going to open the cabin door. "I guess they're in here…?"

"Uh-huh. I'll be in that one." She pointed to her destination. "See you!" She continued down the carriage, opened the door, and side-stepped in (without invitation). "Hi, everyone!" The inhabitants all looked towards the door (except for the man sleeping at the far end), and George, who was very short and possessed the curliest hair known to man, sighed.

"Hello, Miku." His voice was totally devoid of enthusiasm. For as long as he'd known her, he'd found Miku's endless supply of cheerfulness grating. Hermione, who wasn't that fond of her either, smiled as little as is humanly possible and prepared for the long and infinitely naïve conversation ahead. Harry and Ron didn't mind her; Harry appreciated that she had to spend most of her time in Gryffindor, away from her real friends (much like he had to spend the summer with the Dursleys, instead of with Ron and Hermione), and Ron respected her flying talents. No-one knew why she'd come to their cabin voluntarily, though. Fiddling with her hair, which she was unaccustomed to having cut short, Miku sat and looked around absent-mindedly. A few awkward minutes of silence passed, and she was about to speak, when the cabin was plunged into darkness.

Cam brushed his hair behind his ears and entered the cabin – as he'd expected, Mary, George, Kaito, Rin and Len were there – and in the corner, Kim was looking sheepishly at the floor.

"Cam! Fin'lly, ev'ryone's here!"

"Hey, Cam, haven't seen you in ages."

"Hi."

"Hi, everybody." Cam smiled and replied cheerfully to each greeting.

"Cam, help me get Len off my hair!"

"I still have to put the barrette back in!"

"I don't care, Len…" The scuffle faded into the background as Cam glanced at Kim, who still hadn't spoken and was still fascinated with the floor. When Rin's barrette had been returned to its rightful place, Rin loudly addressed the elephant in the room. "So, Kim, are you gonna apologise for being a dumbass now?"A few awkward seconds passed before Kim responded.

"_I_ wasn't the one being a dumbass." Kim didn't budge from her position.

"Excuse me?" Cam's normally mellow face grew stormy. "If you remember, _Kim_, I was-"

"You were sabotaging the project!" Kim stood and came face-to-face with Cam. Her accusation rendered everyone in the cabin speechless, except for Cam.

"_Sabotage_!? I was just testing it out, like you told me to!"

"Until I left the room!"

"I wasn't doing anything different, I already told you!"

"Yes you were, the source files were open, and you were trying to delete them!"

"The application did that by itself!"

"The bloody thing wasn't even capable of _reading_ yet, it couldn't do that by itself! And why on earth would it delete its own source files!?"

"I'm telling you, it did! Kim, we've known each other for years now, you have to believe me…" Kim stopped in her tracks, made a small, sad noise, and sat down again. The cabin was plunged into darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN**: La-la-la-la~, hinting at an OC's evolution in relation to the overarching narrative and possible pairings with pre-established canon characters~, la-la-la-la~, exposition and conflict galore, la-la-la-la~

Chapter 2

"I think the light's gone." Miku's voice stated the obvious cheerfully, but there was an unsettling note of panic hidden in her voice. Nonetheless, Hermione rolled her eyes. She was not a fan of the obvious. George groaned, and hoped that the sudden darkness would provoke Miku to return to her usual little group. He wondered (for the millionth time) if he'd ever actually tell Harry and the rest about the origins of the mysterious foursome – he hoped the time when he'd have to would never come. Well, why would it? It's nothing to worry abou-

His thoughts were cut off by a sudden – _coldness_ which swept through the cabin. A shiver ran through the occupants, each of them forgetting that the others were there at all. George was yanked into an early memory – he was at school, and some older kids had pushed him into a mud puddle for an undisclosed reason. The coldness was eerily similar – and the emotions of ridicule and inadequacy flooded back stronger than they'd ever been – that moment had taught him to have a thicker skin, but in his perceived invincibility he'd become more vulnerable than ever. He was sure of that – and it pulled at his heart with cold fingers.

For the first time since… no, not the first time, that time would be the first time… technically… all the way back in the time of the 0's and 1's. When time wasn't time, when she wasn't Miku, when she was just a beta of a beta of a beta. And the time ended when she first heard something, from the voice recognition software, and it was…

"01010111 01101000 01111001 00100000 01110111 01101111 01101110 00100111 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01100010 01101100 01101111 01101111 01100100 01111001 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110010 01101011 00100001 00111111." The unintelligible code flowed subconsciously from her lips, making her dizzy, making her sick, making her sad. The worst part was that she didn't know why. The door flung open – for a second it was as if it was by itself – but a tall, cloaked figure was just visible.

"01000011 01101111 01101101 01100101 00100000 01001111 01001110 00101100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110011 01110100 01110101 01110000 01101001 01100100 00100000 01101101 01100001 01100011 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100101 00100001." Whispering more miserable code, closed her eyes and curled up into a position that was embedded in her muscles. "01110011 01101111 01110010 01110010 01111001." A buzz at the back of her head; and it was gone. "No more code." She murmured.

Looking around in the gloaming, she gathered that Harry had fainted (or something), and the man seated in the corner was finally awake. She gave a sudden yelp; "I'm just going to go now!", and escaped into the motorway which was the carriage. Kids were rushing around, trying to find someone of authority, and eventually Miku squeezed into the cabin where her friends were seated.

"What… what just happened?" Len was the first to speak. Miku stumbled in, and gave a small whimper.

"Mi'ku, what happen'd with Harry?" She sat down heavily.

"Kim… can you tell me what some code means?"

"S-Sure." Kim glanced, worried, at Cam – who averted his eyes. 'I can't expect him to forgive me instantly.' "What is it?" Miku began to recite what she remembered of the codes – she may have said them multiple times, or only once – all the same, she could repeat them, with a dead feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"I… I don't know. It's just gibberish. It's nothing, it's a MissingNo, forget it!" Tension mounted, both in the cabin and in Kim's voice. The silence was filled with a jolting movement – the train was gliding along its tracks once more. No-one had noticed that it'd stopped in the first place.

"Kim-" Rin began a sentence with her usual bold demeanour.

"Nothing."

"You can't be-" Len started, significantly weaker.

"_Nothing_."

"Kim, look at me." Cam spoke gently. "It's alright, okay? Just tell us what it means."

"Mmmff. Gotta have it written down."

"Come on, Kim. I've seen you deal with longer stuff than that in seconds." He shot a knowing look at Miku, which he hoped she found comforting.

"I… I think I must've said it in the early development stages or… something. The voice recognition was an utter nightmare; I had a… bad couple of months. I used to yell at the damn thing, it took bloody ages for it to respond, and eventually I switched to a new set of code… it had to first recognise the dialogue, then match it to a pre-made voice profile (even longer if it had to create a new one, in which case it had to run facial recognition as well in order to create the profile), then convert it to binary, then identify a response – also binary, until run through the automated voicebank editor. What I'm saying is… those were the first words Miku ever heard."

"That doesn't explain why she had such an aversion to it, though."

"I… I say – 'Why won't you work, you stupid thing', and Miku says… she says that she's sorry." Kim made a little hiccupping noise, and looked Miku right in the eye. "But I'm the one who should be sorry. I haven't been fair to anyone here – not recently," She glanced at Cam. Miku was curled up again. "Or way back." She shifted her gaze fully to Cam. He'd shifted a bit closer to Miku, she was sure.

"Hang on a second – Kim, you couldn't possibly have known that it would affect Miku in that way." As always, Kaito delivered as the voice of reason.

"And I concealed the full purpose of the project from Cam. I mean, none of you even _knew_ about it, 'till now."

"There's a way ta' fix that, ya know." Mary and John wore mirrored expressions of expectation. Miku looked up once again.

"Kim, I think you owe us." Kim nodded, as the train ground to a halt.

"When we have more time. I… I promise." Without a word, the group gathered their bags and stepped out into the ruckus of the platform. "I promise."


	3. Chapter 3

**AN**: I don't know about anyone else, but I'm finding this much more fun than I thought it'd be. Commentsor reviews, perhaps?

Chapter 3

Stumbling a little, Miku tugged at her bag, which was immovable in the middle of the platform.

"Sorry!" She exclaimed as someone tripped over it. With a sigh, Kaito returned and helped her carry it.

"Why did you need such a heavy carry-on bag, Miku?"

"I swear it wasn't this heavy when I packed it! Honestly!" She recalled what she'd decided to take on the train with her; a book about music history, her wand, Kim's rat, Negi. It couldn't be this heavy all of a sudden, it didn't make sense. She tried to voice her thoughts to Kaito, or anyone who'd listen really; but she was caught up in the flow of students.

"Apparently it was a _Dementor_. She heard a second-year girl whisper.

"But… what's a Dementor?" Her friend asked.

"I, uh… I don't actually know. They must be _really_ dangerous though." Miku also wondered absent-mindedly what a Dementor was.

Kim was a little reluctant to tell her secret – well, obviously. It was a secret, after all. It was fortunate that she didn't have to tell everyone at once, though; only Cam, Rin, and Len would know first, gathered around her at the Slytherin table.

"Well, uh… you see, the aim of the project was… I was trying to write a new…"

"Kim, just spit it out." Rin encouraged and/or nagged (I suppose it depends on your definition).

"I've been making attempts at restoring on the software I used to create the vocaloids." She made vague hand gestures to Rin and Len. "It really bugs me that it was destroyed or whatever when we made you guys. I looked in my back-up external drives when I got home, but it's all gone. I want to retrieve the AI software."

"…Why would you want to do that, Kim?" Len looked puzzled. "I mean… if you ever use it, then the back-ups will be destroyed like the last time, won't they?" Kim bit her lip.

"I think I may be dealing with something… dangerous."

The Gryffindor table was not as exciting; something was going on with George and his group, but Miku wasn't involved – she was more interested in the contents of her bag. She gave Negi a little stroke in her small carry-on cage, moved the music history book aside, and found – nothing. Just her wand, lying forgotten at the bottom of her bag. She lifted it; yes, it was as light as she could remember. What on earth happened on the platform?

"No."

"What are you talking about, Cam?"

"I want no part of this." His expression was as stormy as it had been on the train, though slightly more contained.

"But I didn't know! At least, not when I got you to test it!"

"You can't put someone in danger like that, Kim! It's irresponsible and makes you look like a jerk!"

"Look, you two, we don't even know why it's dangerous. Kim, what's wrong with the programming?" Rin managed to sober up (for once) at the mention of danger – or it might've just been the prospect of a cheap thrill at the hands of said.

"Little… _things_ have been going wrong. Things get deleted, and for a while I thought that Cam had planted something…" Cam frowned. "…But I know that's not the case. Things have been getting worse, it's like something out of Poltergeist, and I don't know what to do about it."

"Delete the bloody program!" Cam interjected as soon as she'd finished. "You just have to get rid of it, Kim."

"I don't want to! I've spent ages on it; I want to keep working on it! I _must_!"

"_That's insane!_ You'd be putting all of us in danger!" Rin boldly shoved into the argument.

"I have to agree." Len stated quietly. Kim stared at each of her friends. Len looked sheepish. Rin was annoyed. Cam's softened features were unreadable. Kim sighed heavily.

"Okay. Alright. I'll stop working on it." All but Cam relaxed a little.

"And you have to delete it." Kim snorted.

"Don't worry about it, okay? Whatever got rid of it last time won't be… _angered_ or something if we just leave it alone."

"…Deal." Rin leaned on the table and shook her head. "It's stupid to get this worked up about it. Kim, you just have to leave it alone. That's all." The mood was less tense, and after a few seconds, Kim stuck out her hand.

"Okay. I promise, I won't fiddle with this thing anymore." She shook Cam's hand, but he looked away right afterwards. Kim removed her glasses and began to clean them – just for the sake of breaking the shell of un-interaction between them. "Cam, I'm _sorry_."

"Okay, it's fine. We agreed what we'll do, right?" He gave her a small smile, which gave her all the reassurance in the world. He looked away again – at the Gryffindor table. 'What's so interesting over there?' Kim wondered. Meanwhile, Rin was engaged in a small-scale Gobstones match with Len – the conversation had veered away from their interests just long enough to start a game.

Miku glanced at the teacher's table, and noticed that the strange man who'd been in George's cabin was sitting there – she guessed that he was a teacher. There was little else scattered around which interested her, so she cursed her luck at being placed in Gryffindor once again, petted Negi, and awaited Dumbledore's mandatory star-of-term speech.


End file.
